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Questions & Answers about Der Mann ist da.
Why do we use der before Mann?
In German, every noun has a grammatical gender. Mann (man) is masculine. When a masculine noun is the subject of a sentence, we use the definite article der to mean 'the'.
Why do we use ist instead of bin?
The verb must match the subject. bin (am) is only used with ich (I). Because our subject is der Mann (a third-person singular subject, like 'he'), we use the verb form ist (is).
If I want to replace der Mann with a pronoun, which one do I use?
You would use er (he). Since der Mann is a masculine noun, you can swap it out and simply say Er ist da (He is there).
I thought the word for 'there' was dort. What is the difference between da and dort?
Both can mean 'there', but da is much more flexible. dort strictly points to a location further away (like 'over there'). da can mean 'there', but it is also commonly used to simply say someone or something is present, available, or 'here'.